Climate, in brief

A UK government plan from July 2023 promised a programme, from 2023 to 2027, to prepare England's countryside for wildfires. [1]

It was never carried out. The UK government says the promise was made by the previous government and not brought into effect. [1]

Guy Shrubsole, a campaigner and author, found this out through a freedom of information request. [1]

More than half of the 29 fire services that answered a separate request have no protective gear made for wildfires. [1]

Ordinary firefighting gear does not filter gases such as carbon monoxide in wildfire smoke, and it can be too hot to wear. [1]

Few staff are trained for it: in Cleveland, five people, 1.2% of staff, are qualified to command a wildfire. [1]

This summer England and Wales had 1,017 wildfires by mid-August, equal to last year's record. [2]

On 13 August the UK reached a record 38.1C, and fires destroyed 19 homes in Stourbridge, a town in the West Midlands. [3]

Prime Minister Andy Burnham then banned the sale of disposable barbecues across Great Britain and called in the military. [4][2]

The UK government now says wildfires are a priority, and it will hold a summit with fire services. [1]

The Fire Brigades Union, which represents firefighters, wants proper wildfire gear and training for all its members. [1]

Why it matters. The next test is the UK government's wildfire summit with fire services: watch whether it names money and dates for wildfire gear and training before next summer. [1]

Rain left over from Hurricane Polo, which hit Mexico's Pacific coast earlier in the week, flooded towns across the central United States. [7] Lincoln, Nebraska, had 6.1 inches on 30 September, its wettest day on record, and Omaha's fire service made 80 water rescues in three hours. [7] Parts of Texas were in drought: at Dallas Fort Worth airport no rain fell for 67 days, from 16 July to 20 September. [16] In Mexico's Sonora state, hundreds of people were still out of their homes. [7]

Why it matters. Hurricane Rachel reached Category 3 off Mexico on Thursday, in a Pacific season experts link to El Nino. [7] The same warming has kept the Atlantic quiet, with no hurricane in September for the first time in more than 30 years. [8]

A 238-foot research ship set out on Saturday to put back the first batch of deep-sea monitors the US government had started to remove. [17] The network of 900 instruments, worth $368 million, sat off Oregon, Washington State, Alaska and North Carolina, and between Greenland and Iceland. [17] It measures currents, sea life and undersea volcanoes. [17] The National Science Foundation, the US agency that funds basic science, began removing it in late 2025, though it was built to run 15 more years. [17] Scientists, fishermen and Congress pushed back. [17]

Why it matters. Weather forecasters, climate scientists and fishing fleets use the data. [17] It matters more now, because a strong El Nino is changing the Pacific's weather and fisheries. [17]

FedEx, the US parcel company, ordered 2,000 electric box trucks from Harbinger, a US start-up, in a deal reported to be worth more than $300 million. [10] It is one of the largest firm orders for electric delivery trucks so far. [10] Harbinger says each truck cuts fuel costs by about $20,000 a year against the diesel truck it replaces, and lasts 20 years. [10] FedEx aims to run an all-electric fleet by 2040. [10]

Why it matters. Electrek works out about $800 million saved over 20 years from Harbinger's own figures. [10] Harbinger's chief executive said the order shows electric trucks make business sense for large fleets. [10]

A long heatwave began in southern California on Friday, and the US National Weather Service expects it to last at least a week. [5] Downtown Los Angeles was forecast near 100F, about 38C, with hotter days inland. [5] A UCLA professor said Friday was nearly 7F hotter than any 2 October on record. [5] October heatwaves come from high air pressure parked over the region, and this year a marine heatwave offshore adds to them. [5]

Why it matters. Hot weather and dry soil raise the wildfire risk, though no strong winds are forecast yet. [5] Heatwaves grow likelier and longer with every half-degree of global warming, a UCLA physicist said. [5]

Hot seas have bleached coral this year around Florida, on Panama's Pacific coast and in Kiribati in the central Pacific, Nature reports. [6] Bleaching is when coral pushes out the tiny algae that feed it, and it can kill the coral. [6] It comes less than a year after the last global bleaching ended in 2025. [6] Hard coral cover in 2020-2024 was 9.5% lower than in 1980-2009, and it fell 8.9% in 2024 alone. [6] Scientists expect worse in 2027, when El Nino peaks. [6]

Why it matters. Researchers are trying new rescues, from moving coral to deeper, cooler water to playing the sounds of a healthy reef underwater. [6] In tests, coral larvae that heard those sounds settled almost twice as often. [6]

37% of new US home solar systems came with a battery in 2025, up from 25% the year before, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found. [12] The laboratory is a US government research centre, and its data covers about 450,000 systems built that year. [12] In California the share was 74%, after a 2023 rule cut what homes are paid for power they send to the grid. [12] Outside California it rose from 7% to 17%. [12]

Why it matters. When selling spare daytime power pays less, storing it for the evening is worth more. [12] Installers in other states face similar changes to how exported power is paid, so the same push is spreading. [12]

Brazil's grid has room to connect about 56 gigawatts of big batteries ahead of auctions on 2 and 4 December, the Brazilian Association of Energy Storage Solutions calculated. [14] It used a note from the national grid operator published on 30 September. [14] The association expects a power shortfall of 4.5 to 10 gigawatts in 2028-2030. [14] Developers registered 6,091 projects, totalling 296.8 gigawatts, for the auctions. [14]

Why it matters. With plenty of room and many bidders, price should decide which projects win, which the association says helps power users. [14] Batteries at chosen substations get a 10% bonus, because they can help keep the grid's voltage steady. [14]

Some US commercial fishermen who voted for President Donald Trump now blame his policies for their rising costs, AP reports. [11] Diesel, which their boats burn, has reached about $6 a gallon during the war with Iran, against under $4 a year ago. [11] Staff cuts at NOAA, the US agency that runs fisheries and weather forecasting, have slowed its help and reduced the weather balloons fishermen rely on. [11] A trade war with Canada has hurt crab markets. [11]

Why it matters. Fishing matters in close midterm races in Washington, Alaska and Maine. [11] Fishermen were also among those who pushed back against removing the US ocean monitors. [17]

A manager at the National Trust, the British charity that looks after historic houses and land, said protecting every heritage site from climate change may not be possible. [18] Justin Scully, who runs Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire, said heat, heavy rain and wildfire risk already harm its gardens, moors and buildings. [18] Heavy rain can soak into walls, and dry spells can make the ground sink. [18] The trust is planning for the next 40 years and gets no guaranteed government money. [18]

Why it matters. It asked for a Cabinet-level minister to lead climate preparation across government. [18] The request came the same weekend England's wildfire programme was found never to have started. [1]

Unigrid, a San Diego company, has shipped its first 100 home batteries made with sodium instead of lithium and expects to ship 1,000 by the end of the year, the BBC reports. [13] Requests have come from Spain, France, Germany and the Netherlands, where people want to store cheap power to run air conditioning in heatwaves. [13] Sodium batteries could be cheaper and less likely to catch fire. [13] In Germany, Revolta won about 264,000 euros of EU money to build a sodium battery for flats. [19]

Why it matters. China makes most sodium cells today, and Unigrid buys its cells there for now. [13] Germany began letting home batteries take power from the grid and sell it back on 1 October, which makes them more worth owning. [19]

Mercedes-Benz will stop selling its EQE electric saloon and its $180,000 electric Maybach SUV in the US for the 2027 model year, Electrek reports. [20] Both belong to its first generation of electric cars, which it is replacing with newer models such as the CLA, from $47,250. [20] Kia, the South Korean carmaker, is offering up to $10,000 off some electric cars in the US as its cheapest, the EV3 at about $30,000, reaches showrooms. [21]

Why it matters. Kia sold just over 500 EV3s in its first full month and wants a fourth record sales year in a row. [21] Both carmakers are putting their weight behind cheaper electric models. [20][21]

Vianode, a Norwegian company that makes synthetic graphite for car batteries, is looking for a partner or a buyer, its chief executive told Reuters. [22] Graphite forms the anode, one of the two ends inside a battery. [22] China controls about 95% of the world's battery-grade graphite. [22] Vianode is building a plant in Ontario, Canada, that could supply about 2 million electric cars a year, and General Motors signed a supply deal with it in 2025. [22]

Why it matters. GM has since scaled back its electric plans, and battery firms struggle to raise money after Sweden's Northvolt collapsed. [22] Western companies are racing to cut their reliance on China for battery materials. [22]

Dandelion Energy and Lennar, one of the biggest US homebuilders, finished nearly 100 homes south of Denver that each draw heat through a hole drilled 200 to 500 feet into the ground. [23] Down there it stays about 50F all year, warming the home in winter and cooling it in summer. [23] Drilling one home at a time often costs over $10,000, so the firms drill a whole estate before the foundations go in. [23] They plan 1,500 such homes in Colorado. [23]

Why it matters. In cold snaps these systems use a quarter of the electricity of air heat pumps, Dandelion says. [23] A US Department of Energy report found 7 million such homes by 2035 could cut winter peak demand by more than 40 gigawatts. [23]

Britain faces a gap of about 10% in flexible power, the kind that can be switched on at short notice, Cornwall Insight, an energy consultancy, calculated. [24] Filling it would take about 100 large batteries or 400 small gas plants. [24] Its research says homes that shift when they charge cars and run appliances could do much of that job. [24] Britain's grid operator says total generating capacity may need to rise by 206% to 245% between 2024 and 2050. [25]

Why it matters. Demand peaks in the evening, when people get home, and wind and solar do not always match it. [24] Building the extra batteries or gas plants would be expensive and need other grid upgrades, Cornwall Insight says. [24]

Water stored on land, in soil, rivers, lakes and underground, fell by about 173 cubic kilometres a year from 2002 to 2025, a study in Scientific Reports found. [26] It used the GRACE satellites, which track water by measuring small changes in Earth's gravity. [26] A few drying hotspots outweighed gains elsewhere. [26] In 55% of the river basins losing water, the land also got worse at holding out against drought. [26]

Why it matters. In some dry regions droughts now start faster and hit harder, the authors say. [26]

Methane, a gas that warms the planet, leaks from oil and gas sites, and a few very large leaks make up a big share of it, a study in Communications Earth & Environment found. [27] So a small number of measurements can get the average badly wrong. [27] A sample reads too low when it catches fewer big leakers than really exist. [27] The authors studied six US oil and gas fields and found each needs its own sampling plan. [27]

Why it matters. Estimates built from a few site visits can miss much of what escapes. [27] Very large samples may be needed to get it right, the authors say. [27]

Scientists at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory showed that spring sunshine in the US Southwest can be forecast a season ahead. [9] The main source of that skill is the state of El Nino and La Nina, the swings in Pacific sea temperatures. [9] Their forecast system also caught times when wind and solar ran low together. [9]

Why it matters. Grid planners with more wind and solar want to know months ahead when power will run short or run over. [9]

A study in Communications Earth & Environment used 191 records of past climate over 21,000 years, along with computer models. [28] It found monsoon regions near the equator were wetter in warm periods, while many mid-latitude regions under westerly winds were wetter in cold ones. [28] Its models expect drying across many subtropical and mid-latitude regions as warming continues, and wetting in the far north and monsoon regions. [28]

Why it matters. That would widen the gap between wet and dry places and put more pressure on water in dry lands. [28]

By 2050, about half of spring days at Utqiagvik, Alaska, may have ice too thin for whaling crews to work from safely, a study in Scientific Reports projects. [29] People there hunt bowhead whales from the sea ice in spring and autumn, for food and by tradition. [29] The authors compared four sets of results from a US climate model. [29] Changes to autumn winds were less clear. [29]

Why it matters. Whaling at Utqiagvik is hunting for food, so thinner ice threatens a food supply as well as a tradition. [29]

Rooftops on Hong Kong's 338,550 buildings could make 3.77 terawatt-hours of solar power a year, a study in a Nature journal estimated from satellite and ground data. [30] Solar makes only 0.37% of Hong Kong's power today. [30] With Hong Kong's payments for solar power sent to the grid, panels would pay for themselves in about 3.5 to 6.4 years. [30]

Why it matters. The authors say the method can guide solar plans in other crowded, cloudy cities. [30]

Forest managers across Europe agree that drought is the biggest climate risk to their woods, a survey in Communications Earth & Environment found. [31] Most rank mixing broadleaf trees with conifers as the best way to adapt. [31] But a quarter said they would keep or raise the share of conifers, because they expect timber prices to rise. [31]

Why it matters. Expected timber prices are changing what gets planted, against what the same managers rank as best for the forest. [31]

Volunteers with the Lost Woods project have recorded 5,570 old and notable trees across 314 square kilometres of Sussex, in southern England, more than they expected. [32] They include 348 ancient trees, in the last stage of their lives, and 2,743 veteran trees. [32] About 20 volunteers each cover a square kilometre, and the trees go into the UK's Ancient Tree Inventory. [32]

Why it matters. Old trees carry fungi that matter for wildlife, and a tree has to be found before it can be protected. [32]

In Tom Cruise's new film Digger, a giant iceberg breaks off Greenland and threatens Europe. [33] Scientists told Scientific American it could not happen as shown. [33] Ice shelves already float, so an iceberg breaking off does not raise the sea, and the waves it makes reach only a few kilometres. [33] The film's iceberg is about 400 square miles, four times Greenland's largest in recent history, from Petermann Glacier in 2010. [33]

Why it matters. The real risk from polar ice is slow: melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica will raise sea levels around the world. [33]

Researchers found room for more than 8.5 megawatts of solar panels laid between the rails on five South Korean railway lines, pv magazine reports. [34] They studied lines in Busan, Seoul and Daegu and the main Seoul-Busan line, leaving out tunnels and shaded stretches. [34] The idea is to make solar power in crowded cities without using new land. [34]

Why it matters. Railways already sit on public land next to the power lines that trains use. [34]